You don't "dip your toe in the water" when a tsunami is coming

image from CNN

 I've had a bunch of "wow, AI is ongoingly awful" pieces to share, but I now must lead with this weekend "That Metaphor Is a Freudian Slip" example in a piece that is headlined "AI's tidal wave": 

For 165 public school teachers and staffers at the annual school district convocation this week, former state Education Commissioner Jeff Riley offered a strong message about the incoming tidal wave of artificial intelligence.

“I believe we have a choice: We can hold back this tide; we can bury our heads in the sand, or try to surf this wave,” he told the educators gathered Tuesday under a huge tent at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home.

“You don’t need to know how to surf right now,” he said, “but I’m asking you to dip your toe in the water and just begin.

 Here's the advice from actual experts of what to do when a tidal wave is coming:

Evacuate: DO NOT wait! Leave as soon as you see any natural signs of a tsunami or receive an official tsunami warning.

Let's listen to the experts on this tsunami, and not the person who, I was remembering over the weekend, was our erstwhile leadership on K-12 during the pandemic. You may remember how that went.

It appears that parents may be losing faith in the K-12's push on the use of such technology in schools, as The Hill over the weekend reported: 

A recent PDK poll found parents are not comfortable with AI software getting personal information about their children such as grades, and that Americans overall frown upon AI usage for creating lesson plans.  

Unfortunately, the piece then follows up with some "let's pat parents on the head about their concerns" words, closing with a quote from someone whose literal job is to push AI in schools. 
This when we have new reports of the deadly use to which the technology is being used. At this point, we should start a tracking of people whose deaths were directed by it.

Press, we really need more skepticism here.

We should, for example, take a leaf from this nicely done piece of satire by Brian Michael McMurphy in McSweeney's "How I learned to stop teaching and love AI" 

All students, for all assignments, should use ChatGPT to complete each task. Why would you waste your time writing a paper? We now have a tool that can do that for you. And all professors will save massive amounts of time and energy by using ChatGPT to grade all those papers. Isn’t that great? I mean, what an educational revolution.

I really recommend reading and sharing the full piece.

 And speaking of full pieces, I don't remember the last time I found a piece with which I so directly identified as Anthony Moser's "I am an AI hater":

I am here to be rude, because this is a rude technology, and it deserves a rude response. Miyazaki said, “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.” Scam Altman said we can surround the solar system with a Dyson Sphere to hold data centers. Miyazaki is right, and Altman is wrong. Miyazaki tells stories that blend the ordinary and the fantastic in ways people find deeply meaningful. Altman tells lies for money.

And I’m glad they’re lies. Because the makers of AI aren’t damned by their failures, they’re damned by their goals. They want to build a genie to grant them wishes, and their wish is that nobody ever has to make art again. They want to create a new kind of mind, so they can force it into mindless servitude. Their dream is to invent new forms of life to enslave.

And to what end? In a kind of nihilistic symmetry, their dream of the perfect slave machine drains the life of those who use it as well as those who turn the gears. What is life but what we choose, who we know, what we experience? Incoherent empty men want to sell me the chance to stop reading and writing and thinking, to stop caring for my kids or talking to my parents, to stop choosing what I do or knowing why I do it. Blissful ignorance and total isolation, warm in the womb of the algorithm, nourished by hungry machines.

And even as it consumes those who use it, even as the scammers become their own marks, even as it is sustained by exploited workers slotted in as human filters for algorithmic abuse – some people want to have a little, as a treat. As a joke. Just to make fun of it, just for the busywork, because it’s good enough, right? You understand.

I do understand: you want permission. There’s a machine in the corner wrapped in human skin that makes things out of shit and blood to look like whatever you want (as long as you don’t look too closely). You gave one to your teacher and they didn’t notice. Your boss told you to use it after they laid off half the team and it was fine. You fed one to your kids and they liked it. You want to know you can use it sometimes without me thinking less of you. You don’t need me to believe it’s useful, you just want me to be polite about it.

But I am a hater, and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.

Run for high ground to get away from the tsunami.